Editorial

In our previous issue I highlighted the positive impact that classroom research has on the teacher, the context, the field, and on the creation of local knowledge in education. In this issue, I would like to refer to the value of narrative inquiry in education as a methodology for qualitative research and a resource for teacher professional development. Narrative construction is understood by qualitative researchers as a vital human activity that structures experience and gives it meaning (Kramp, 2004).

As a research approach, it provides an effective way to undertake the "systematic study of personal experiences and meaning: how events have been constructed by active subjects (Riessman, 1993, p.70). When we take up narrative inquiry, we understand that unlike more traditional methods, it successfully captures the complex subjective, personal and human dimensions that cannot be otherwise easily understood, let alone quantified into simply facts and numerical data. Jean Clandinin and Michael Connelly (2000) have for over a decade shown that narrative inquiry can be used in educational and social science research as a source for understanding participants' lives through understanding their perspectives and their ways of being in the world with others. For teacher education this is a particularly useful type of inquiry as teachers readily see both the process and product as beneficial for shaping their identity and their curriculum. Clandinin and Connelly (2000) illustrate this through the following example "One may observe a teacher in a classroom and count the number of student utterances and the number of teacher utterances or any sophisticated version of kinds of utterances one might be interested in. But the narrative inquirer hardly knows what to make of this without knowing the narrative threads at work. Those narrative threads are complex and difficult to disentangle" (p.10). There are many forms of narratives that inform the contexts and practices of teaching: histories, biographies and autobiographies, oral histories and personal narratives . Clandinin and Connelly (2000) also believe that in the construction of narratives of experience, there is a reflexive relationship between living a life story and telling a life story.

When analyzing narratives either through content and/or through discursive patterns researchers attempt to recover the meaning of the initial experience for participants. Also as the researchers construct narratives about the participant's lives the voices of both the observed and the observer are woven together into texts. Thus the narrative serves as a way to make meaningful participant understandings, as a vehicle to educate others, and as an object that allows further inquiry for promoting growth.

One example of narrative inquiry in the Colombian context that has contributed useful information has been carried out by educators and researchers on narratives told by children and adults that have suffered forced displacement. Pinilla's (2008) study entitled, "Children's narratives about forced displacement in Colombia: linguistics, discourses and interpretative perspectives" analyzed and interpreted Colombian children`s oral narratives as victims of forced displacement. Based on an interactional and social analysis, the discursive characteristics and the identity features of these oral narratives were brought to light. By resorting to qualitative and reflexive interpretation the various meanings of discursive, affective, social, cultural and political codes became understandable and so did the characterization of the narratives of displacement as a discursive subgenre. Besides, it was identified that regardless of the apparent similarity of these narratives, a great heterogeneity exists that reveals the uniqueness of the children's experiences as authors.

Consequently, within a narrative approach to research narratives are considered valuable resources that may also inform ways to connect lived experiences meaningfully with the curriculum. Clandinin (2000) highlights how narrative inquiry in education has moved from being a research tool to becoming a vehicle for curriculum. Narrative inquiry in education has also contributed as an impetus for curriculum development. Clandinin (2000) argues that it implies situating oneself within a particular history to understand how a teacher actively makes sense of what are often time competing goals in an instructional setting.

Several recent local studies using narratives have been carried out in foreign language teacher education . These include "Teachers' literacy histories and stories of their practices (Clavijo, 2001), teachers' perceptions of linguistic and pedagogical factors of the National Bilingual Plan in Colombia (Maturana, 2011) teachers' knowledge of second language and curriculum (Mendieta, 2011), and teachers' knowledge and use of ICTs in language teacher education (Espitia and Clavijo 2011). Teachers and learners have personal histories, narrate episodes, create stories, and construct curriculum through their dialogs with each other and in relation to others in their profession. Far from just stories that entertain, these narratives inform the contexts and practices of teaching. Their personal histories are part of their knowledge, belief systems and practices. The results of these studies inform teacher educators and researchers of the importance of lived experiences as resources in teacher education.

In this issue of our journal the first group of articles includes research studies by Fabio Arismendi, Doris Colorado and Luisa Fernanda Grajales on reading comprehension strategies used by graduate students in EFL learning in face-to-face and web-based modalities, a second article by Martha Espitia and Amparo Clavijo reveals teachers' interactions as they participate in virtual forums and blogs to establish the pedagogical value of a teacher education experience using internet- based Information & Communication Technologies (ICT). The third article by Mariza Mendez examines motivational properties of emotions in FLL that were studied through students' personal journals.

The second group of articles in this issue includes "An interdisciplinary curriculum to teach English as a second language". The authors Fuentes, Soto, Mein and Jacobson, describe a pedagogical strategy incorporated in an ESL curriculum for Hispanic adult immigrants in the USA. Using quantitative measures of L2 proficiency scores and qualitative attitudinal data, this study shows learners positively experienced learning during the implementation and evaluation of the curriculum. The second article by Liliana Maturana explored teachers' perceptions of pedagogical and linguistic factors in the National Bilingual Plan in Colombia through semi-structured interviews. In the third article of this group, "Narrative as a resource for the display of self-identity", Alba Lucy Guerrero discusses how narrative analysis can be used to understand the way students construct their identities within their schools and communities. In the fourth article entitled "Discourse intonation and systemic functional phonology" Rivas and Germani explain the meaning in interaction through the analysis of a conversation taken from a film and comparing two discourse intonation models. Finally, the article Portfolios across the EFL Curriculum reports on the benefits that prospective EFL teachers perceived in the use of portfolios in their ESP courses.

All in all, these articles emphasize the value of narratives in classrooms as part of inquiry approach to better understand the complexities of language teaching and learning.

Amparo Clavijo Olarte
Editora

References

Clandinin, J. and F. Connelly, (2000) Narrative Inquiry. Volume: 2, Issue: 1, Publisher: Jossey-Bass.         [ Links ]

Clavijo, A. (2001). From Teacher Literacy Histories to Classroom Practices. Presentation at the Second International Conference on Teacher Education. Minneapolis, MN, May 17-19.         [ Links ]

Espitia, M. & Clavijo, A. (2011). Exploring the pedagogical value of virtual forums and blogs to promote collaboration and learning: a teacher education experience. Colomb. Appl. Linguist. J. Vol. 13, No.2. p.27-40.         [ Links ]

Kramp, M. (2004) Exploring Life and Experience through narrative inquiry. In DeMarrais, K. & Lappan, S. (Eds) Foundations for Research Methods for Inquiry in Education and the Social Sciences. Mahwah: NJ. LEA.         [ Links ]

Mendieta, J. (2011) Teachers' Knowledge of Second Language and Curriculum: A Narrative Experience. PROFILE Vol 13, No 1. p.89-110.        [ Links ]

Pinilla, R. (2008). Récits d'enfants déplacés par la violence en Colombie: approches linguistiques, discursives et interprétatives. Dissertation (PhD in Language Studies) - Faculté de Sciences Humaines, Université René Descartes - Paris 5, Paris.        [ Links ]

Riessman, C.K. (1993). Narrative Analysis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.         [ Links ]